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The United States is playing catch up in regards to EMV, the global electronic payment standard that’s already in use in every other major market worldwide. Financial institutions are providing American consumers with microchip-equipped smartcards to replace the magnetic stripe versions in their wallets, and savvy businesses are purchasing EMV-compatible credit card processing equipment to take advantage of merchant incentives offered by the credit card brands.

Few businesses today are cash-only establishments due to the ever-growing trend towards cashless payments for goods and services. As a business owner it is important to give the customer what they want — and what they want is convenience, which includes having alternative payment options to cash. Most modern consumers expect to have a variety of payment choices, so it makes good business sense to accept credit cards in your business as a basic building block for success. Mobile commerce is another global trend business owners should take advantage of, as it is transforming how people shop, pay and save.

While on vacation recently, I made a number of purchases with my credit card and was asked by the merchant for my picture ID before the transaction was completed. Since this is not common practice in the area where I live, it raised a question in my mind: Are merchants allowed to ask credit card customers for personal identification?

In October 2015 U.S. retailers and payment processors will adopt EMV (the global standard for embedded-chip technology launched by EuroPay, MasterCard® and Visa®) technology to help prevent widespread fraudulent activity. The outdated and obsolete magnetic stripe on payment cards that store and transmit financial data will be replaced with embedded microchips which dramatically improve security measures. As the microchip-embedded cards (chip cards) replace magnetic stripe cards, retailers will become responsible for paying fraudulent charges if they decline to upgrade their systems in order to accept EMV payments by the October 2015 deadline.

A chargeback occurs when the holder of a credit card contacts the card issuer to dispute a charge on his or her account. Chargebacks occur to all sorts of businesses all the time, but e-commerce businesses are at greater risk because of the card-not-present nature of their transactions.